


Means and ends

by the_alchemist



Category: Henry VI - Shakespeare, Richard III - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-09 23:30:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7821499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/pseuds/the_alchemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? No, frankly. But for Anne, turning from Lancastrian widow into Yorkist wife is a smart move, and doing so with apparant reluctance a smarter one yet. There was a prior agreement - two, really, one between children at Middleham who thought they were in love; and one between adults in London who understood that love has nothing to do with it.</p><p>Richard knows all there is to know about gaining power, but what to do with it once it's his? For that he needs a wife who understands pragmatism and survival. And had their son lived, he might just have had the sense to realise it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Glorious summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gehayi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gehayi/gifts).



> Thank you to beta reader R, and to Gehayi for the excellent prompt.
> 
> Content notes: off-stage torture, and various not-entirely-consensual marriages.

_Now is the winter of our discontent_

_Made glorious summer by this sun of York;_

_And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house_

_In the deep bosom of the ocean buried._

 

The Duke of Gloucester slipped out from the victory banquet, feeling uncouth and out of place among the brightness and merriment of his brother's court.

His private chambers were vast and luxurious. He stood for a while, wondering which room to choose, into which armchair to pour his misshapen body. Slumping down into the nearest, he fingered its velvet with vague disgust.

A knock on the door. "Enter."

"There's a woman to see you, your Grace."

Gloucester looked up. "A woman?"

"Yes," said Ratcliffe. "You know? Like a man, but with soft bits on the front. I know you've been with the army for a while, but–"

Gloucester cut him off, unsmiling. "Who is she?"

"Lancaster's widow, your Grace."

Anne.

 

Richard was the newest of Warwick's fosterlings, the youngest, the smallest, the weakest ... or so it seemed.

A great lout of a knight's son had taken an instant dislike to him. To be honest, most people took an instant dislike to Richard, including his own mother, but Peter's dislike was more active than most.

Richard tried to avoid being alone with him, but it wasn't easy, and that one summer morning, he failed. Peter had him in an armlock, face down in the stable straw.

"Say it. Say you're a nasty little cripple who would be better off dead."

A vast spasm of pain radiated up through his arm, exploding into his neck and head. But if there was one thing Richard was used to, it was enduring pain. "No," he said. He hated his cracked and throaty voice, hated how weak it made him sound, hated that Peter would think it meant he was afraid. Hated most of all what it really meant: the gross and sordid process of turning from a boy to a man, too early, as his teeth and speech had come too early; hated the new desires it brought, and the growing realisation that they would never be fulfilled.

The hate gave him strength to force his body upwards, ignore his cracking shoulder joint, and somehow turn. He remembered kneeing the larger boy in the groin, but didn't remember what he did next, only looking down to see Peter move his hand in disbelief to the bleeding bitemark on his face.

Peter's voice was unsteady. "I'll ... I'll tell my Lord of Warwick." And he ran off.

Richard grimaced as he moved his shoulder joint back into place, and then was suddenly aware that he wasn't alone.

A girl was there, watching him, a riding crop in her hand. Warwick's youngest daughter, Anne.

 

"My Lord of Gloucester." The Lady Anne curtseyed deeply. Her widow's black suited her well.

"My Lady." Gloucester inclined his head, and gestured to another chair.

To his surprise, she took it, and smiled. "Why not Anne?" she said. "You used to call me Anne."

"It's been a long time," he said.

Why was she here? To berate her husband's murderer? Or to kill him? The thick dark velvet could easily hide a knife. He imagined grappling with her, and the thought aroused him.

 

"Why was Peter hurting you?" she said.

She was beautiful. Blue eyes and red hair, only lately pinned up beneath a woman's jewelled coif. Soft skin, with a few freckles that only added to her comeliness. He felt himself becoming aroused.

He stood up as straight as he could, and met her eyes, which took more courage than any fight. "He called me a nasty little cripple," said Richard, enunciating every word daring her to point out that the description wasn't inaccurate.

Her jaw set in anger, and her brows furrowed, perhaps with pity. That infuriated him. He would goad her into expressing the disgust she was well bred enough to conceal.

"He said that no girl would ever want to kiss me." He took a step forward, exaggerating his limp, and twisting his face into a grin.

"Well," said Anne, "I can show you how ridiculous that is." And she embraced him, and kissed him firmly on the lips.

 

"Why are you here?" said Gloucester.

"You made me a widow," she said. "I am here to seek recompense."

"What recompense?" His tone remained neutral.

"The fulfilment of a pledge."

 

"Did you?" asked Warwick, the tall man looming above the three of them: Richard, Peter and Anne, his richly jewelled doublet out of place in the stableyard. "Did you bite Peter's face?"

Before Richard could respond, Anne curtseyed and said: "And it please you, father, Richard only did it to defend me. Peter was calling me names and ... and ..." she flushed bright red, with an admirable duplicity. "And he tried to kiss me."

Peter was gone that day, and Richard was to double the time he spent on the lance and sword. "It is good to fight for honourable ends," Warwick said, "but you must learn honourable means as well."

That was almost the last time Richard was alone with Anne. From then, they were closely supervised, often by the Countess of Warwick herself. But on the night before Richard was to leave to join his brother, the Countess said she had to run an errand. Looking seriously between her daughter and the young man who had become a little like a son to her, she enjoined them to remember that there were honourable and dishonourable ways for young persons who might one day marry to express their love.

Both Richard and Anne regretted in the years that followed that only honourable kisses only were exchanged. Kisses, and a pledge, broken by their elders for the dishonourable end of political expediency.

 

"I killed your husband," said Gloucester. "I killed the man you chose in my place."

Anne laughed. "You think I had a _choice_?" she said. "No. You did me a great favour by killing him. Edward of Lancaster was a cruel husband – there was only one woman he cared for, and that was his mother."

"I killed your father-in-law, your King."

She lowered her eyes. "Henry was a good man," she said. "I regret that his death was necessary, but it was."

"I fought for my brother, who killed your father."

It was a long time before she spoke. "I am not the only woman to watch men she loved tear one another apart over these wars. If my father had lived, things might be different. But they are not."

He inclined his head in a slow nod. "Do you love me?" he asked.

Anne considered her response for a long time. "I wish I were still the girl I was who loved the boy you were," she said. "But I fear there is no place left for love in this world. I love what you can give me."

"And what's that?" said Richard. "This?" He gestured to his body, his mouth twisting into a cruel leer. "I knew widows were lecherous, but–"

Anne cut him off.  "Life," she said. "Life, and safety. As a Lancastrian widow, I will be in danger. As a Yorkist duchess, I'm as safe as anyone."

"You think I'm _safe_?"

"I think you're powerful. And I think my fortune could make you more powerful still." She looked up sharply. "A Yorkist duchess, or else a Yorkist queen."

Gloucester stared, and saw from her eyes that he had understood her correctly. "My brother has an heir," he said. "And there is Clarence and his son."

"I know you, Richard. Don't tell me you haven't considered it."

"Do you know me?"

"Yes," she said. "And I choose you in spite of it. No. Because of it."

"And you would lie next to me at nights? Let this body crawl on top and fuck you?"

"By the mass, Richard," she said, almost fondly, "how many hours do you waste obsessing about your body? You're worse than a maiden. As long as you can plant an heir or two in me and maybe give me a few minutes of pleasure and forgetting in the process, I don't care."

"Then they're right about widows," said Richard. "And that's how the world will see you, you know. They will joke and leer in every tavern in England."

"They will honour me as their queen," said Anne. "If you ask me for my hand, you should do it in public, where everyone can see. I will play the maid's part and say 'nay' again and again until you turn it into 'aye'."


	2. Lasting joy

_Here, I hope, begins our lasting joy._

 

The Queen and Prince of Wales accompanied King Richard as far as Leicester, and held court in their pavilion there, awaiting news of the battle at Bosworth.

"Aren't you afraid?" asked one of the ladies, but Anne shook her head.

"Richard is the better leader, and has the bigger force."

Ned paced the wide tented chamber, sighing. "There were younger boys than me that went today," he said. "That fought, even. I should be doing my duty against the traitor."

"None of them were Prince of Wales, my lamb," said Anne. "You will be grown soon enough, but for now you're too precious to risk."

It was true. The handsome, golden-haired boy was the darling of London – of the whole country, when they went on progress the previous summer. The people seemed to have forgotten there was ever another prince of Wales. And Anne had overheard a couple of Richard's captain's saying they fought for the heir more than for the king.

The messenger made a deep bow has he entered. "Your graces," he said. "The King is victorious, the rebels killed or captured. Richmond's Revolt is at an end."

"Glory be to God," said Anne, crossing herself. "Come, ladies, let us go instruct the cooks in making the victory feast."

 

Richmond and the other male rebels were taken under guard to the Tower of London, but there were female prisoners as well. Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville were secured in a nearby convent, but Elizabeth of York was entrusted to the care of the Queen.

"Leave us," she said to her guards. She looked over the pale, pretty girl, her cheeks tear-stained and her gown dirty from the road. "My dear," she said, with genuine sympathy.

"Where is my mother?" said Elizabeth.

"She is safe," said Anne. "She was a traitor, and should by rights be burned, but the King has showed her mercy."

Elizabeth's voice shook, but she looked Anne straight in the eye. "The same mercy he showed my brothers?" she asked.

"My husband did not kill the princes," said Anne.

 

After the coronation, King Richard and Queen Anne were disrobed together, their gentlemen and ladies lifting off the crowns and unlacing the heavy gowns.

"Leave us," said the King, once the regalia had been taken away.

Queen Anne reclined on the robing room's day bed, but King Richard paced back and forth, always restless.

"Well," said Queen Anne. "Here we are."

"Here we are," said Richard. "And what now?"

"Now you rule England," said Anne. "You rule well, you are remembered as the greatest king that ever lived, and in time our heirs succeed after us."

She regretted that as soon as she said it. She had invoked the idea of heirs with the idea of getting down to the business of making one, but she should have known that Richard would think only of his death.

He touched the jewelled crucifix that hung around her neck. "And what of me then?" he said. "Do you believe in these things? In heaven and hell?"

"Of course," she said.

"I have done much evil."

"Perhaps," she said. "And perhaps not. You are a king now. I cannot think of a thing you have done which hasn't been for England's good."

"Clarence–" he began.

"Would have made a miserable king," she said.

"And I?" he said. "Won't I make a miserable king? We are not well loved, Anne. The people want the cherub-faced boy as their king, the sun king's son–"

"His bastard," corrected Anne. "And anyway, 'woe to the land that has a child as king.'"

"They don't care," said Richard. "They want a pretty face for their coins, a youthful smile, a comely body."

"The people are fickle," said Anne. "They will like you well enough once you have brought them peace and prosperity. Little Edward will die and be forgotten."

"Little Edward is almost twenty years younger than me and in perfect health."

"You mistake me," said Anne, meeting Richard's eyes with a steady gaze. "Little Edward _will_ die."

 

"What will you do with me?" Henry, the erstwhile Earl of Richmond tried to sit on the rough wooden stool in his Tower apartment as though it were a throne. But he had been wounded in the arm at Bosworth, and the wound allowed to fester. His body wanted to sag and fall.

"I rather think that's up to you," said Richard. "The sentence for treason is to be hung, drawn and quartered, of course, but I could see my way to having you beheaded instead, if you would be willing to sign this for me."

He handed Henry the confession, written in chancery hand on thick parchment, made to withstand  the centuries. Henry glanced over it, and looked up. "I did not kill the princes," he said. "And I am not afraid of anything you can do to my body."

Richard had thought himself past the sensual pleasure of causing and watching another person's pain, but when he remembered the rack in the next room, and imagined stretching and breaking the handsome youth's straight spine, and solid, healthy joints, he felt a frisson of something like arousal.

But that could wait until tomorrow – build up the fear first, then start with the pain. That was a trick he had learned from his mother, who always told him at least a fortnight in advance when a new set of doctors were to come and make their vain attempts to twist his body into something like the son she wanted.

In any case, he was due to sup with his wife, his son, and their new guest.

 

Elizabeth of York was both taller and prettier than Richard remembered, with her mother's pale gold hair and blue eyes. And her mother's stubbornness, it seemed.

"No madam," she was saying, standing up, her arms folded. "I will not sit at the table with you, and I certainly will not sit with the man who killed my brothers."

Anne turned as the door opened. "Ah, Richard, my love," she said, beckoning him in. "Our niece knows her manners. She will not sit in the presence of a king and queen."

Richard smiled at both ladies, and at his son, who had stood and bowed then sat again, reading.

"Then we must sup in private," he said. "And leave the young people alone."

 

"No," said Henry.

He had been taken from his modestly comfortable room to a dark cell far beneath the ground, and even by the dim candlelight, Richard could see he was close to death.

"This stubborness will avail you nothing," said Richard. "A signature is easily faked."

"A soul free from perjury is not," Henry slurred, through a mouth full of broken teeth.

Richard sighed. "Very well," he said. "Let's see whether your mother's conscience is less particular. I like the idea of Lady Margaret Beaufort going down as the most evil woman in history. And of course, female traitors are burnt rather than hanged ..."

 

Anne placed the veil over Elizabeth's head and arranged it carefully over her shoulders, surprised to feel something like the natural joy a mother takes on her son's wedding day.

Westminster Abbey was packed with all the nobility in England, the gentry and yeomanry packing the procession route all the way to Windsor. The Prince of Wales and his bride were everything Richard was not: young, beautiful and unsullied by past deeds, or by rumour.

And yet, by the mysterious alchemy of public opinion, Ned and Elizabeth had transmuted Richard from a crooked villain into a wise father – of the kingdom as much as of his son – bowed by the burdens of authority, and not by a twisted soul.

"I'm not a fool," said Elizabeth suddenly.

"I know," said Anne, adjusting the veil a little.

"I mean, confessions extorted by torture are worth nothing."

Anne paused, thinking to deny what Elizabeth implied, but then thought better of it. The girl was indeed no fool. "This one is worth a kingdom to your husband," she said.

"Poor Ned," said Elizabeth. "Sometimes I think he doesn't understand what his father is, sometimes I think he knows all too well."

"He will make a better husband than Henry would have, you know."

"That's what all mothers say."

"It is," said Anne, remembering her own first wedding, remembering Margaret, who thought her puffed-up little bully of a mother's boy the most eligible bachelor in Christendom. "Yet I have seen how Henry treated his mistresses, and I have seen only gentleness when Ned looks at you."

Elizabeth was silent. She too had seen that gentleness, and grown to love it, albeit as a big sister more than as a wife. Furthermore, she had seen the beginning of a kingly strength that reminded her of her own father.

"My daughter," said Anne, fixing the clasp on Elizabeth's jewelled chain.

"My mother," said Elizabeth, with a bitterness that reminded Anne of Richard. "The only mother I deserve, since I am a traitor to the one who bore me."

"I was a traitor to my father and mother both," said Anne. "I did what I had to."

"And so will I," said Elizabeth, walking to the door, ready to make the long procession toward her new husband.

Gentleness and kingly strength. And a sense of justice that might in time help her lead him to avenge her brothers.


End file.
